School officials begin shaping Measure B projects

Share this:

SAN LEANDRO HIGH SCHOOL auto shop teacher Andy Shyers helps students Brion Garside and Kyle Snow during classTuesday.

Algebra teacher Rebecca Grass lines her students up on their way to the library on the first day of class.

Students Paul Wiggins and Victor Crow read books in the San Leandro High School library on Thursday. Thelibrary is expected to undergo expansions and renovations through Measure B, a $109 million school facilities bond passed by votersearlier this month.

SAN LEANDRO — If projects for the new school facilities bond mirror the success the district had in implementing plans for its last school measure, district officials may just stay on cloud nine.

Still basking in the successful passage of the $109 million Measure B school bond earlier this month, the district has begun preliminary planning to bring the measure’s projects to life.

“This is a significant new vision for the district and we’re addressing what has bothered the community for a while now — and that’s overcrowding at the high school,’ said Superintendent Christine Lim.

Most of the bond’s funding will go toward revamping the district’s lone comprehensive high school, with its library and industrial arts shop classes seeing improvements and expansions.

About $38 million will go toward a separate campus for freshmen at San Leandro High School.

Unofficially named the Ninth Grade Academy, the latest plans show construction of a 54,000-square-foot building with 28 classrooms designed to hold about 750 students. Its location depends on the district acquiring two blocks of land near campus.

If the district is unable to obtain the land, officials are considering building the academy near the football field.

The idea is to alleviate overcrowding issues and create a more sheltered environment for ninth-graders. As part of the plan, all high school fields will also be redesigned.

District officials are working with Pacific Gas & Electric on obtaining the company’s parking lot, which stretches alongside San Leandro High’s east side, near its tennis courts.

Lim said she is confident a deal can be worked out, and if all goes smoothly the area will serve as a new student parking lot.

The current student parking lot would then become the site of a new performing arts education center, another project funded by the bond.

San Leandro High’s current music building would be demolished to make room for the new center, designed to include a 450-seat theater and music facilities.

Aside from the San Leandro High projects, money from the measure, which passed with 68.3 percent of the vote, will renovate and upgrade all district schools. Measure B is estimated to cost property owners $39 per $100,000 of assessed property value — and possibly less, depending on the growth of the tax base.

The measure is twice the size of the district’s last construction bond, MeasureA for $53.8 million, passed in 1997.

With additional windfall that could trickle down from the state via Proposition 1D, a $10.4 billion statewide bond passed by voters earlier this month to modernize California public schools and higher education facilities, Measure B is in a similar situation to its predecessor.

Measure A projects were completed about five years ahead of schedule thanks to pots of money the district was able to obtain from the state to augment the bond’s funding.

“We have a pretty good direction in where we want to go in the next steps for Measure B and are lining up for additional state funding,” board president Pauline Cutter said.

Officials say an ideal timeline to get all projects completed would be about five years after the district receives the bond funds. They expect that to happen next year.

“There’s a certain amount that we can do at a time to keep our promise of $39 (cost to property owners), but there’s still so much we need to do beforehand prior to moving forward,” Cutter said.

The district will look to form a Measure B citizens oversight committee that will go before the board for approval at a meeting on Dec. 5.

More in News

The White House's move to restore Acosta's pass, announced in a letter to the news network, appeared to be a capitulation to CNN in its brief legal fight against the administration. White House officials had suspended Acosta's White House press pass following a contentious news conference on Nov. 7, prompting CNN to sue last week to force the administration to...

Not only was racial animus a likely factor when Charter Communications repeatedly rejected negotiations with Entertainment Studios, the TV programmer, but Charter's attempt to shield itself from allegations of bias using the First Amendment is also without merit, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.